


gethsemane

by Askance



Series: Mashiach [7]
Category: Supernatural
Genre: Blood, Implied Future Character Death, M/M, Mild Implied Incest, Religious Content, Religious Imagery & Symbolism, Stigmata
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-01-01
Updated: 2013-01-01
Packaged: 2017-11-30 00:10:51
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,807
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/693112
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Askance/pseuds/Askance
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>All in all, Sam has lost fifty pounds and an immeasurable amount of blood since this all started.</p>
            </blockquote>





	gethsemane

All in all, Sam has lost fifty pounds and an immeasurable amount of blood since this all started. He can now count on his ribs as easily as he can count on his fingers. He tries to eat for Dean’s sake but can’t find it in himself to be hungry; he doesn’t even have the energy to watch television anymore. Most days, now, he lies motionless in bed, acutely aware of the pull of skin against his ribcage when he breathes, and focuses on the crucifix on the opposite wall. Sometimes he mouths prayers; more and more he forgets how they go halfway through— _Hail Mary, full of grace—Hail Mary—the Lord is with Thee._

Increasingly he is having trouble sleeping.

Neither Sam nor Dean nor Cas, when he visits, says anything aloud, but they’re all thinking it. Sam won’t last much longer. Not the way he is. Castiel’s appearances in the motel room are becoming more and more infrequent, and Sam thinks that, in all probability, the next time he hears the sound of the angel’s wings will be the last time.

Dean has become stone-silent, moving in ever-contracting circles around the room, touching Sam near-constantly as if to ground him and make sure he doesn’t go floating off. Sam is losing much of the feeling in his arms and legs and the moments where Dean’s mouth is pressed warmly and sadly against his are moments he is grateful for—they’re the most he’s _felt_ in days, weeks. He asks Dean to stay up with him on the nights when the insomnia is worst, at least until he can find some kind of rest, and Dean wouldn’t say no even if he wanted to.

But Dean is only human, and Dean is exhausted. Sam can’t blame him. He makes a valiant effort to keep awake, though, and it’s enough; he gently holds Sam’s bandaged hand between his own for hours, thumb rubbing circles against the tender skin, murmurs nonsense that sounds like a mixture of bedtime stories and prayers, strokes the same strand of hair behind Sam’s ear over and over again. But eventually, inevitably, he falls asleep before Sam does, head drooping, and Sam weathers the rest of the dark alone, fixating on the glint of streetlamps on the crucifix, hoping to find sleep in the metal curves.

He feels a tightness in his bones on a Thursday night that means another sleepless dusk and makes the request as usual—Sam can hear his voice becoming softer and weaker with every passing day, and Dean, rubbing at his eyes, nods, draws up the motel armchair with a grating scrape and drops down into it. Sam whispers his thanks and Dean smiles a smile so sad it makes Sam’s heart falter. The one thing he regrets about this miracle is the toll it’s taking on his brother. He hates it, abhors seeing that sorrow invade the crevices of Dean’s face.

Hand in hands, Dean’s sloped shoulders leaning toward him, like a mother hovering over a sick child. Weary and half-delirious with exhaustion Sam murmurs, “You’re a saint,” and Dean’s smile becomes a little lighter, and little more good-humoured.

“Nah,” he says softly. “Just a big brother.”

Sam curls his fingertips a little against Dean’s wrist even though it sends bolts of pain into his arm and Dean reaches over to turn out the lamp.

The night drifts; Sam lies back and blinks slowly at Dean’s silhouette in the dark, willing his body to relax and shut down. He outlines Dean’s edges over and over, memorising his blackness, connecting it with the gentle movement of his thumb making its hypnotic circles against his skin. Dean yawns, and Sam is seized with the sudden urge to tell him _never mind, just go to sleep. It’s okay. I’m being selfish._ But he knows his brother, and Dean won’t leave even if he asks. Stubborn to the core.

Sam turns his head away a little, to keep the glint of the hot tears in his eyes away from the moonlight, away from Dean’s gaze. There is nothing more frustrating than insomnia, and nothing more guilty than forcing it on someone else.

Inevitably Dean’s hands go slack and Sam hears his breathing even out, and he gently removes his fingers from Dean’s grip, feels the sting of guilt again, wishes he had the capability to return the favour of what Dean has done for him since the wounds appeared on his feet—lay him down, tuck him under the covers, make comfortable his rest, but he can’t, and it infuriates him.

Eyes heavy but dry of sleep, Sam sits up in bed, tenuously grips the edge of the nightstand with his fingertips.

He would be lying if he said he didn’t love the pain. For the first few weeks Dean begged him constantly to consider getting rid of the holes, find a loophole or a spell, but Sam had insisted then that he wanted this, craved it, even, and that hasn’t changed since. He knows he’s blessed. For the first time in his life, he’s blessed, and he won’t trade that for the world, not now.

But it kills him all the same—it kills him how much this hurts Dean. Sam could care less about his own death hanging over his head but he worries constantly what will become of his brother when he’s gone, how he can possibly be coping, how he can possibly still have the wherewithall to smile for Sam, sit up with Sam, sacrifice and sacrifice for Sam just as he always has. Dean is so tired. And for what? Putting up with Sam’s steady roll towards ecstasy and an early grave? Sam knows it’s not fair, and this is what he hates.

It hurts like hell to put what little weight he has on his feet. But he manages.

Prayer has become his bread and water and he wants badly to pray right now, talk things through with God or whoever it is who’s touched his hands and feet with grace.

It takes fifteen minutes to cross the four feet of motel that separate the bed from the bathroom and Sam knows Dean will scold him in the morning for the bloody prints smudged across the carpet. He doesn’t bother with the light. He shuts the door and sinks down onto the edge of the bathtub; dappled blue light comes in through the warped glass window above it, just enough glow to exist by.

Sam leans down and manages to dislodge the bandages wrapped around his feet; he pushes them aside on the tile and the stained gauze from his hands follows. Already a pool of blood is forming beneath his heels, sticky, smelling of Easter lilies. Sam observes his bleeding with detachment. It’s so much a part of him now he wonders if he was ever anything else besides this.

He stands, winces—makes the three steps across the slick tile to the sink and takes a hard look at himself. His head bandage is soaked through and beginning to leak into his face, thin rivulets coursing into the hollows of his eyes and the gaunt dip of his cheekbones. Sam wonders what will kill him first, the starvation or the blood loss, and then wonders if it matters. Either way, he’s going, and soon.

Either way he is getting what he always wanted and leaving a hole shaped like himself in the passenger seat of the car that Dean will never be able to fill.

_Selfish._

“I don’t know what to do,” he whispers, watching his own mouth move. He raises his eyes up to the cracked bathroom ceiling. It’s hard to tell the difference between tears and blood—both are so warm on his skin. “I—”

Sam pulls back from the mirror and lowers himself to the floor, carefully, unable to stand the ache of putting weight on his feet, and as soon as his spine curls he breaks in the middle, curves in on himself. Legs angled, elbows pinched in, bloody hands like soft talons hovering near his face. God help him, he sobs, and it feels well-deserved.

“I don’t want to leave him, Lord,” he chokes out. “I’m—he’s—we’re all we have, I don’t—I don’t know what to do. I want this. I know—”

The blue light shifts across his blood coagulating on the tile.

“I know—” The sigh Sam lets out is wet; his arms fall heavily into his lap and he lifts his face, imploring. “I know this is—mercy, you’re forgiving me, I’m—thankful, I’m thankful, I’m—I’m so blessed. So—blessed, and tired, and he’s—he’s so tired, I just want. I want.”

He wipes blearily at his face with his fingertips, smears tears and blood in equal measure across his cheek.

“I want him to—rest.”

He wants Dean to sleep, to smile, to be able to see that one day he will be able to move on from this, and Sam is selfish, so selfish to ask him to stay up and hold him, give him comfort. So selfish. Greedy.

“Just let us rest,” he pleads, a whisper, eyelids heavy, chest rising and falling with effort. “Just let us rest a little while.”

A ringing begins in Sam’s ear, and builds, crescendoing just long enough to disguise the faint flutter of feathers that resounds in the corner of the bathroom beside the door.

Castiel’s arms are unexpected, then, when they gently come to rest around Sam’s body, but Sam is too tired, too worn to react in surprise, and he slurs the angel’s name halfway like an unfinished Hail Mary before he relaxes back into them. He doesn’t know where Cas came from, or why he is here—but automatically he can feel the sluggish honey of sleep pulling into his bones, a residue of Castiel’s touch, perhaps, and he can feel Cas moving to hold him on the floor, near-cradling him, small as he’s become.

“Oh, Sam,” he hears him whisper. “You’re not selfish. You’re afraid. There’s no shame in that.”

Sam tips his head against Castiel’s shoulder and manages to meet his eyes.

“Rest,” Cas murmurs.

The word carries power.

Just before it takes its hold Sam remembers, the thing he’s been thinking for weeks now—that the next time he hears the beats of Castiel’s wings will be the last. A harbinger of the end wearing the face of a friend, with safe arms, gentle love. Sam thinks of Dean, alone in the chair in the dark, and the empty passenger seat, and Castiel’s hand on Dean’s shoulder, and is grateful that he’s come.

Not selfish. _Afraid_. He’s right, all in all.

All of this is almost ended.

_Rest._

Sam supposes, with something like thanksgiving, that he will.

**Author's Note:**

> This series belongs in part to Casey, whose contributions can be read [here](http://whiskyandoldspice.tumblr.com/fanfiction). 
> 
> In the Garden of Gethsemane, Jesus prayed to be spared his death. The apostles, whom he asked to stay awake with him, were unable to keep from falling asleep.


End file.
